The works presented in "Paperwork and the Will of Capital," though stand-alone artifacts, are borne of many invisible layers of Simon’s deep research and conceptual practice, laid out in this volume. In an essay by the critic Kate Fowle, the far-reaching background of Simon’s elegant floral imagery is traced, through the annals of international diplomacy and the vagaries power, as represented by deliberately the benign symbolism of flora. The economist and investigative journalist Nicholas Kulish discusses the shakeable world order since 1945, as seen by Simon in her body of work, and the botanist Daniel Atha looks at adaptation and survival in the plant world as a mirror for human political action. A short story by the fiction writer Hanan Al-Shayk winds in and around the work, extending and contextualizing its meaning.

This publication adds to the growing archive of Simon’s research-based body of work. “I view my medium as photography, text, graphic design, and primarily research. Writing is actually the biggest component of my work,” Simon told the Guggenheim in 2015. As a producer of books, text, and written matter, Simon’s career has been unusual and exceptional. A storyteller whose grist is the instability of fact, Simon’s research-driven approach has produced several other investigative, information-based projects, such as The Innocents (2002); An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (2007); Contraband (2010); and A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I-XVIII (2008-11); as well as the more whimsical The Picture Collection (2013), and Birds of the West Indies (2013-14).

Taryn Simon’s method is to compress very large quantities of information and implication, and to direct it into elegant visual works, the deftness of which don’t always indicate the obsessive and esoteric digging that shaped it. Her methodology, often scarcely visible in the final product, is a valuable resources that should be explored in itself. This vibrantly illustrated publication is an essential accompaniment to the work.

The works presented in "Paperwork and the Will of Capital," though stand-alone artifacts, are borne of many invisible layers of Simon’s deep research and conceptual practice, laid out in this volume. In an essay by the critic Kate Fowle, the far-reaching background of Simon’s elegant floral imagery is traced, through the annals of international diplomacy and the vagaries power, as represented by deliberately the benign symbolism of flora. The economist and investigative journalist Nicholas Kulish discusses the shakeable world order since 1945, as seen by Simon in her body of work, and the botanist Daniel Atha looks at adaptation and survival in the plant world as a mirror for human political action. A short story by the fiction writer Hanan Al-Shayk winds in and around the work, extending and contextualizing its meaning.

This publication adds to the growing archive of Simon’s research-based body of work. “I view my medium as photography, text, graphic design, and primarily research. Writing is actually the biggest component of my work,” Simon told the Guggenheim in 2015. As a producer of books, text, and written matter, Simon’s career has been unusual and exceptional. A storyteller whose grist is the instability of fact, Simon’s research-driven approach has produced several other investigative, information-based projects, such as The Innocents (2002); An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (2007); Contraband (2010); and A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I-XVIII (2008-11); as well as the more whimsical The Picture Collection (2013), and Birds of the West Indies (2013-14).

Taryn Simon’s method is to compress very large quantities of information and implication, and to direct it into elegant visual works, the deftness of which don’t always indicate the obsessive and esoteric digging that shaped it. Her methodology, often scarcely visible in the final product, is a valuable resources that should be explored in itself. This vibrantly illustrated publication is an essential accompaniment to the work.